Well it has been awhile since I last posted and I promise that I will do better.

Well since I last posted we have found out that we are having twin girls. Poor Dillon, he will have to be the lonely big brother with all those girls around.

Dillon and Jennilyn have been enjoying playing outside a lot right now and even run and get their shoes and bring them to us when they want to go out. Jennilyn is into saying bye-bye and waving to you all the time. She is a cutie. I will try and update some pictures this weekend when I have the laptop back. Dan is out of town again and I am using a different computer that dosen't have all my pictures on it.

We have another ultrasound this Friday to see how the twins are growing. Dan has had his first job with our new computer repair business that we have started. He even gets to go back this Saturday and do another job for the them that they requested. Hopefully we will continue to see more jobs come in.

Yesturday, I had a some vistors come see me. My great-Aunt Orba who lives down in Zillia, WA (4 hrs away) and her husband Nick, my grandfathers cousin Russell, and my great-great- aunt Elma who lives here in Spokane came to see me. Orba called and said she was in town and wanted to come and visit me and say hello. I was really greatful for the visit. It is nice to know that I have family willing to call and stop by when they are in town.

Well the day is a busy one for me so I better get going.

Netty

Hello,

Well it has been awhile since I last posted. We found out last week that we are pregnant with twins. So come January we will have 4 kids 3 years old and younger. I have also learned how to add the slideshow on this so check out some of the recent pictures of the kids from Jennilyn's 1st birthday last week.

Take care.
Netty

Jennilyn is walking now. She started recently when Netty had taken the kids to her grandparents (great-grandparents for our kids) for their wedding anniversary celebration. We had seen a few steps here and there before but not as a regular thing. Now she's walking most places. What is fun is that she'll stop to pick up her favorite blanket whenever it is nearby.

As for Dillon, he's talking a bit more. Still not a whole lot. Yet, he's been adding words here and there on a more frequent basis. He'll say "more" and hand you his sippee cup instead of just handing his cup up before you like he used to and expecting a refill. He also tries to singing along with some of the videos. Marsha was up this past week and had some alphabet video with her that Dillon would follow along with trying to draw his letters in the air like they directed. I wasn't surprised. One of his favorite DVDs is a Leap Frog video teaching the alphabet. Dillon also seems to enjoy having signs read to him off the doors at church with his usual "What is that?"

The long period of unemployment has come down to a terrible decision. Netty and I must move. My father will be helping us financially until I can get employ, so I expect he'll make sure I job hunt like it was a full-time job in itself complete with overtime, minus the overtime pay though. Anyways, our lease is up the end of this month and our landlord has someone else interested in renting the place. We've known this was happening so we got most of the stuff packed up already. Today, we'll finish packing up and get the rental truck. Tomorrow, we'll load the truck and on Wednesday we'll start the drive to my parents' home in Spokane, Washington. My dad figures it will quickly be cheaper than supporting our rent too by having us relocate there. Still, I was hoping to get one of the jobs I had an interview with so I would have been scrambling to find a place locally or in Iowa and going for perhaps a cheaper truck rental.

Thinking of the moving truck rental, ugh! Just three years ago we moved out here from Utah. We rented a moving truck for about eight hundred, not counting gas. I was expecting some inflation and the increased gas prices to hurt especially. Turns out that the cheapest rental truck we could find for the one-way trip is about thirteen hundred, not counting taxes or gas. Ouch! We had some saved up in anticipation of a move with all this job hunting, we just had no idea that it had gotten quite so expensive.

Jennilyn loves practicing her stair climbing. She has gotten good enough that she even climbed up the first step of a step ladder while we weren't paying attention. We had just looked away for a bit thinking nothing of her playing there. We knew Dillon could climb ladders so we had been careful watching him around any ladder, but now we know Jennilyn is upgrading her skills to ladders too. Maybe soon we'll be converting her crib (after we move) to a toddler bed.

Another surprise this past month is learning that Netty is pregnant again. That was not planned. I know what it takes to make a baby.... The details of our planning would probably qualify as too much information. Anyways, Netty had her first ultrasound to make sure it wasn't another tubal pregnancy. The doctor told us that she should get a second ultrasound this next month to confirm whether it is twins or not. I guess I could leap into the lead for kids among my siblings.

Well it has been a while since I last wrote. I have been busy packing as we are moving to Spokane, WA in 1 1/2 weeks. Dan is still unemployed so we are moving in with family until we can find a job. I think that maybe this is for the best, as we recently got a surpise that I am pregnant again. Due Feb 1, 2009. It will be nice to be living close to my mother in law when this happens. I am headed up to Floodwood, MN tomorrow until June 22nd to visit my husbands grandmother. We are also going up to help my in-laws paint grandma's house (of course I will be taking care of my two kids).

I have decided that I need to make a better effort of keeping this up, so I am going to try and do better.

Untill later.

Well we are into another week of job searching. Dan lost is job in Nov so it has been a long three months now.

Jennilyn is growing like a week. She is almost 19 lbs and can crawl and likes to eat what we are eating not the baby food. She also hates a bottle but likes a sippy cup (Go figure).

Dillon is a busy 2 year old who likes to play with his sister and loves to play with cars or play outside. He can't seem to understand that even though it looks nice outstide the -30 degree windchill factor outside makes it so he can't go out and play. We have had cold winter this year, but it is starting to finally warm up. Even though yesturday we had negative windchill factor here.

Dan has a job interview today, I hope it goes well.

Netty

Well we have had our little girl. Jennilyn Annette Burke was born Aug 16, 2007 @ 4:35 am. She weighed 9 lbs 1 oz and 22 inchs long. Dan was out of town and she came so quickly that he wouldn't have made it in time even if I could have gotten a hold of him. I got to the hospital at 11:10 pm on Wed and she was born 5 1/2 hrs later. She is a bundle of joy. I will write more later.

Well it has been a while since Dan and I have posted on this blog account, and since I have noticed that some of my friends have started using blogger I decided I better come back and start using it again.

Boy what an exciting year we have had since we last wrote. In Nov we found out we were excepting our 2nd child. We are due any day now. We do not know what we are having since the baby wouldn't cooperate with us.

In July we decided to move a little closer to work and family and church, so it is nice to live closer to everything that we enjoy.

We will keep you posted on when the new little one arrives.

Netty

Dillon's 1st Birthday

 

It has been about a month since the last entry into this blog. As you can see here, we've started introducing Dillon to books. He likes to stick them in his mouth of course. We really ought to thank whoever started the children's cardboard books. They stand up to his taste testing much better than our church magazines that he has sampled too. I have been reading the stories as I flip the pages in hopes that eventually he might make the connection that there is more there than just different pictures on the different pages.

It was entertaining this morning when we shared our pancake breakfast with Dillon. I ran out of pancakes on my plate and Dillon started screaming because he wasn't getting his steady supply of pancake. Fortunately, we had some more. He just didn't understand that dad wasn't abandoning him to pancake oblivion. I was restocking. Dillon enjoyed it.

Later, as my wife took a neighbor to work, I enjoyed some time watching Dillon as he slept. That is when he is real easy to watch. Cute. Quiet. Low maintaince. Just stay quiet enough not to wake him. Since he'll sleep through the washing machine and TV, it really is just a matter of not laughing mostly. He still wakes up easily when he hears laughter. At least, he seems to do so when I am around. It is cute to watch him wake up and look around like he's trying to find what he missed out on. Still, he needs his sleep or he ends up cranky. Now, if he would just learn that he will have time to explore the world after his nap too, and he'll enjoy it more without being cranky. Dillon puts a real struggle sometimes about going to sleep. It's as if he has to experience and see more yet before he sleep steals him away.

Well, my wife and I stayed up late last night. I am staying with her over at the neighbors' as she babysits their little boy. 

Before driving back down from the wedding, we stayed overnight and then went to church on Sunday with Jennifer. We did leave church a little early. We were one tired lot. Granted, I think Dillon was just going down for his usual nap here. Talk about a case of "rug face." This dad had to have a picture or two because he just looked so cute. My wife snapped the picture, and a few others. I like this one the best.

I know Dillon's had used to sleep on the floor quite a bit. His Grandpa Burke still takes sound naps on the floor. We've seen that too.

My wife tells me that he normally isn't left to sleep on the floor. But, I don't think Dillon was going to wait for a bed or drive in the car to sleep that Sunday. 

Last weekend, my cousin got married. Of course, I have a good number of cousins and as I try to remember her name, it eludes me. All I can come up with is names that it is not. Oh... I think that means it must be Sylvia. I eliminated all the other possibilities.

Well, my wife and I took our camera with us and asked the photographer to snap some pictures of our family with it. Granted, it did help that the photographer was my sister Jennifer. We just had to wait a bit for her to have a break in her wedding photography obligations. Although, I think Jennifer did have some fun playing with her nephew now that he's more "interesting."

Of course, in this picture, I was just having a little fun. I didn't really coordinate with little Dillon that we would both be looking the wrong way. Still, I thought it was cool how it turned out. Not necessarily a family photo to send out or put on the walls. Still, I enjoy it very much.

This past few days have been somewhat interesting. Somehow I injured my shoulder. We finally had a doctor check it out, but it seems that all I've done is stress my muscles. They poked me and it didn't hurt. My arm was supported and put through a full range of motion and it didn't hurt at all. We were given a couple prescriptions, but we spent the afternoon on a family activity/date and didn't get to a pharmacy in time. I don't plan to fill get the one for a pain medication. It would be too easy to do things I shouldn't if I didn't have the pain there reminding me that my shoulder isn't up to those tasks. As for the muscle relaxant, we'll see how I am doing on Monday as to whether we'll fill that prescription. I am already feeling a little better. I just think I can sleep laying down yet. In fact, I have had to sleep in the La-Z-Boy recliner the past few nights. My wife has complained a little that she is lonely in bed without me. However, lying down causes me too much pain right now. Amazing how much I used those shoulder muscles for minor tasks. So, right now, hotel stays are not sounding very appealing. I don't think their chairs are quite as suitable for sleeping in. I hope it gets better soon because I need to setup some repair work in Missouri and I will be sleeping in hotels several nights to that end. Not this week, but soon enough. 

Here's a picture of Dillon with a toy apple from his father's youth. I was given this toy as part of my inheritance from my mom. This particular apple survived a fire when I was but a little boy. A fire that I started by plugging in the lamp for my parents' movie camera. The lamp got real hot and started the bed it was lying upon on fire.... but, that's not a story of Dillon's youth. That is the story of the toy apple. It is a little warped in the back, the only visible damage. The toy still wobbles upright and rings like it should.

Having been through all my brothers and sisters, and two cousins before him, the apple is now Dillon's to play with. At four months old, Dillon is starting to take a greater interest in the world around him. He did seem to enjoy pushing the apple around when this picture was taken.

Yesterday, he was thrilled to get a walk outside in the rain. I used a front carrier to free up some hands for the umbrella.... It was a good walk.

What I find interesting is his interest in mom and dad's food. While he doesn't seem to like baby cereal, he does frequently make grabs after any food that mom is eating and stares at either of us when we are eating. Yesterday, Netty let him "gum" her sandwich in between her bites. He got upset when she would take the sandwich away from him to take her next bite. And last night, he stared at us as we ate spaghetti. He even pulled Netty's plate closer to himself. She pulled it back away and we told him that this is a food that doesn't quite work with "gumming." I don't think he understood us. Then again, he is only four months old.

We do love Dillon. We just have to wonder what we are going to do for introducing him to solid foods over the next year. He doesn't even have teeth yet, and he's already after our food and not showing interest in baby cereal. 

Dillon has three surviving great-grandmothers at the moment. On Christmas Eve, Great-Grandma Burke got see her newest great-grandchild, pictured here. It was a great party, but Dillon slept through most of it, noisy adults and children alike.

From his great-grandma, he received a cute, christmas teddy bear.

Of interest was his cousin Nathan stopping into a room where Dillon and my wife were for a moments feeding. Although Dillon was hidden from view by a blanket, he pointed over there and told the other boy with him that it was his cousin Dillon. They then promptly left. This was significant to my wife. It was cool to see the four-year-old boy proudly declare his relation to the baby.

We are hoping to visit another of his great-grandmothers for New Year's Eve. With a wedding or two planned for Annette's family this next year, hopefully Dillon will get a picture or two snapped of him with his surviving great-grandmother on his mom's side. So, the Lord willing, he will get at least one picture snapped with each of his three surviving great-grandmothers. 

From left to right on this picture, we have Annette, myself, Grandpa Jack, Dillon (in grandpa's arm), and Grandma. Jack Dillon is a professional scouter, so it's a little interesting that he had only daughters. Where things a good twist is his married daughters. So far, every one of the three daughters he has married thus far has had a boy as their first child.

In quite a contrast to my own father, I am told that Jack went straight to the baby at the airport when my wife and sister picked them up. He really enjoyed holding his grandson.

Annette told me early on that she wanted a boy as her first child. Apparently, she had thought it would've been nice to have an older brother. With this thought, she wanted her own children to have just that. Dillon fulfills that wish, although we would've been happy no matter what.

The people who participated in the circle for Dillon's blessing were Jack Dillon, John Burke, Brian Burke (my brother), Bishop Squire, and myself. The blessing was a rather simple one.

I can only wonder if what my wife saw as she sat in the congregation was the same as she had envisioned when we still just dating. It was something she had told me about back then. When someone was blessing their child in church, she had a vision of me up there holding our child. That was several months before I proposed to her, so the comment obviously didn't scare me off. So, over a year later, perhaps not quite as envisioned, she got to see that come true. 

While our faith doesn't do christenings, we do give priesthood blessings to our precious little children. As the father, I had the privilege and opportunity to do this for little Dillon the second weekend of December. So, a couple weeks later, I finally post some pics taken while his grandparents had all gathered around to adore their new grandchild.

Dillon is the third grandson, and fourth grandchild on both sides. This picture is his Grandma and Grandpa Burke. My dad was letting everyone else hold the baby most of the time.

Because Dillon was born with very little hair on the top of his but plenty of hair around the sides, we got to hear a little bit about my own early hair. It seems that I was born the same way. My dad was in the air force at the time, and my hair on the sides was the source of some teasing about his hippy son. So, my dad gave me my first haircut at three weeks old.

It is barely over a month, and Dillon hasn't had his hair cut yet. I couldn't help think though, that Dillon is starting life with a bald look similar to what his dad may be slowly developing. The difference is that he's filling in his bald spot with fresh hair growth.

Well, it has been awhile since I have posted a blog. I am sitting here watching my little one sleep. He is doing much better, which has mommy very excited. He has decided to eat every two hours at night and go between two and four hours duing the day, but we are getting adjusted to that. I am stating to get some of my energy back to start getting my new home put in order. I am still walking around in a maze of boxes everywhere. Dan has been great in trying to do some while he is home. But, today it was back to work, out of town, for him so we won't be seeing him much this week at all, but we knew that was going to be the case.

We had a quite Thanksgiving Dinner here at our home. Dan did a great job cooking the ham, potatos, exct.
The picture is the day we got to come home from the hospital with Dillon, our first family picture.
Well until later.
Netty

That first night, it wasn’t Dillon that I stared at. It was my wife, Annette. She looked quite radiant to me holding our little boy. We didn’t have any other pics that I thought showed the IVs too well, so here’s one of her holding Dillon that Friday night. We were very excited, hungry, and tired.

Brian ended up bringing us dinner from McDonalds. I may have had breakfast and lunch, but I had eaten light and was so focused on Annette that I didn’t realize just how hungry I was until it was over. As for Annette, she had been having trouble keeping down even water much of the day. And since Sarah had hung out with us during those last couple, exciting hours, she was rightfully hungry too.

Later that evening, Annette almost fainted. We would end up staying in the hospital until Sunday for them to observe her. Once the magnesium sulfate dripped was removed, not only did Annette rejoice, her heart rate went down gradually after that point. As for her blood pressure, well that had gone down as soon as labor was over. She had lost quite a bit of blood during birth, so they had rightfully been a bit concerned.

We were getting tired of the hospital scenery, but Dillon was diagnosed with jaundice and low blood sugar when they examined him Sunday. They did some blood work and required that he stay until Tuesday morning. When they started to talk about sending him to a children’s hospital in St. Paul, Annette’s anxiety went up once again. Fortunately, the initial blood work came back fine.

Annette ended up staying there to feed him, although she had been discharged. I supported this because I wanted to her to have Dillon take to breast feeding like she wanted. It meant frequent feedings, but once her milk started to come in things also began to go more smoothly with the feedings and his blood sugar. I slept the nights there as well to be near her and support her as I felt I ought to.

We ended up taking the special jaundice blanket home with us to radiate him with special light during his sleep to help his skin. However, he chose to eat every hour that night. While this meant a sleep deprivation headache for Annette in the morning, his levels had come down quite substantially when they did another blood test Wednesday.

It is nice to be home with our little boy. I have an apartment to get unpacked, a car to fix, and yet I am at peace and feel great about it all since we have our little boy here. He does seem to like sleeping next to his mom and being held. Mom and dad make great beds it seems, his mom especially.

For what seemed like such a long time, Annette stayed at eight centimeters dilation. Even once she was given the okay to push, it would take over an hour before Dillon would be born. The doctor had returned and waited outside doing some paperwork or other stuff so he would not get in the way of labor until it was time for him to do his part of things.

Thinking of keeping unnecessary disturbances down, I actually rejected a call from my parents during this part of labor. I just looked over at the cell phone, read who it was, and hit reject. It was nothing personal, but my wife’s needs were my overriding concern at this point. I figured that they could forgive me afterwards. This actually brought some comfort to Annette when I told her that I wasn’t answering my phone because she was more important. I had actually left our hospital room telephone number with some people earlier at Annette’s request but had personally added that I would appreciate it if they limited the calling a bit.

Annette’s own mom would call shortly after Dillon was born. Talk about great timing. It also meant one less phone call for me to make once he was here. I did get a lot of answering machines that night.

Dillon was born at 7:28 PM Central Time (United States), Friday, November 18, 2005. He weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and was 20 inches long.

It was nice to be able to hold him. As I would tell my father later, I really didn’t feel any different at that moment. I knew he was my son. He actually settled down in my arms and my voice seemed to soothe him. I knew then that it would be a lot like marriage for me. It would take time for any change to settle in. I think that I am feeling more like a real dad as I write this, but I must be honest that at first it didn’t quite feel real even though I knew it was.

I can’t help but that think that the magnesium sulfate may have been stopping labor for Annette. Sarah ended up telling us that evening that she had learned it was also used to stop labor when a baby was premature. It actually makes sense. A medication to stop seizures could be used that effects the muscles. This would have a similar effect on the uterus. We may think of it as a special organ for babies, which it is, but it is also a muscle when it comes to actually pushing the baby out. Such a drug would not necessarily distinguish the difference between contractions and seizures. If it is indeed used to stop labor, then it becomes rapidly apparent that the drug cannot distinguish the difference. Hindsight is always 20-20.... Oh, well. Could we have been holding Dillon way early Friday morning if the drip had been reduced from the beginning? It is a mute point now. The only value it holds anymore is for future pregnancies.

Besides, Dillon is healthy baby boy. His dad has already had the pleasure of just sitting and watching him sleep a couple times. This is very enjoyable. I think I really like being a dad.

After eighteen hours from the time the water broke, they put Annette on anti-biotics. In the morning they would add a pitocin drip on another IV in her other hand. This was now two needles more than Annette had wanted. The pain was getting to her.

By noon, she was very receptive to a caesarean section. Her contractions weren’t progressing at all. The needles were dragging on her. She had a nasal headache most of the morning. It was miserable for her. They had waited for doctor approval before she could take the allergy medicine that she usually takes every day to prevent just such a headache, although it was certainly made worse by her miserable state that day.

When Annette was showing signs of excessive exposure to the magnesium sulfate, they finally agreed to reduce the drip. While this didn’t entirely reduce the pain in her hand, it did help. More than this, Annette’s contractions began to escalate. This was encouraging.

With a long and dreadful day all dragging on her, Annette was still discouraged. The needles still hurt. And although it was nice that contractions were resuming, this still put labor several hours in the works.

Another vaginal exam was done, this time by Dr. Hallman. Annette had progressed to four centimeters, which put labor still a long time to go according to the books. He presented us with two options. One was to wait the several hours it would take for labor to progress which still held risks and could end in a caesarean section anyways, or we could do a caesarean section. After much personal struggling with these rather limited options, mostly on my part, we chose option number three. We called for a priesthood leader from our church to come give Annette a blessing.

Brother Langford answered our call. When he arrived, I explained the situation in brief and then we went in to Annette. I anointed her head with oil, and he offered the blessing. It would be shortly after he left that Annette’s contractions finally became strong enough that we focused on getting her through them instead of dealing with the pain of the needles in her hands. This was very promising indeed.

Sarah, my sister-in-law, showed up at just the right time. Right about that time, Annette had the first real urge to push. The nurse did a vaginal exam and told us the dilation was changing even as she did the exam from five to six centimeters. She didn’t want Annette to push with the contractions yet. It would a little bit later, as Annette continued to progress rapidly that she would call the doctor who had left not that long ago.

Sarah would end up staying with us from this point until after Dillon arrived. The nurse snapped this picture because she said the three of us were making an impressive team as Annette labored to give birth. This would make one of two pictures that actually prove I was there. Most of the time, I think I was the one holding the digital camera.